Modern workstations for the treatment of patients, for example, in the area of anesthesia, intensive care or neonatology, are known from practice. These workstations are characterized by high requirements imposed on the integration of devices used simultaneously or with one another. Thus, a number of devices, such as patient monitors, drug pumps, documentation systems and others are regularly connected functionally into one integrated workstation.
The treatment carried out with the workstation may comprise a plurality of phases, which follow each other and can often be clearly distinguished from one another. Based on the example of anesthesia, these phases may comprise induction of anesthesia, maintenance of anesthesia and emergence from anesthesia. These phases can, furthermore, be divided into detailed process steps. Additional activities, which pertain, for example, to the transfer of the patient from the induction room into the operating room, use of a heart-lung machine, taking of x-rays and the like, can be optionally added to the individual phases.
When passing over from a first phase of the treatment to a second phase, it is necessary, as a rule, to manually adapt a number of settings at the workstation or at the treatment devices comprised by said workstation to phase-typical or phase-dependent boundary conditions. Based on the example of anesthesia, interactions, such as changes in therapy settings (gas concentration, ventilation parameters), alarm settings (setting of alarm limits, activation/deactivation of alarms) as well as adjustments to the control surface, may be necessary at the time of such a phase transition. These actions, which are repeated during each treatment or anesthesia, must be carried out separately at individual components and devices comprised by the workstation.
The adjustments of the above-mentioned settings regularly represent a great effort for the person in charge of the treatment of the patient (the attending physician or nurse). It can therefore be observed in practice that regularly only the most needed adjustments, e.g., the control of the depth of anesthesia by setting the gaseous anesthetic concentration, are carried out at the time of transition from one phase of treatment to the next, especially under time pressure and stress. Other adjustments, for example, the adjustment of the alarm settings, are often neglected because of the complicated and uncomfortable operation. This may lead to undesired behavior of the device. One example of this is false alarms caused by suboptimal settings. However, dangerous situations may occur as well, because important interactions, such as reactivation of the alarms of hemodynamic monitoring after the termination of the operation of the heart-lung machine, were forgotten or were not executed for other reasons. Thus, the insufficient technical support does not prevent erroneous human behavior, which represents a considerable safety risk. Furthermore, the operation of the therapeutic workstation differs from one user to the next while the activities are comparable per se. This makes it difficult to improve quality by means of standardized procedures.